Picking up the Pieces
by lionesseyes13
Summary: When the royal progress comes to Mindelan, tempers flare and relationships shatter, as Lachran discovers. Set during Squire.


Author's Note: This story was written for the challenge over at the Tamora Pierce Writing Experiment forum, which was to write about a very minor character whose interaction with major characters is defined completely in the books and to use that background character to explore an issue, place, or way of life that we wouldn't otherwise get to see. I thought, after reading in _Squire_ Anders' request to Kel to speak with his son, Lachlan, about becoming a page, that I would take the opportunity to examine the dynamics of the Mindelan family.

Picking up the Pieces

The royal progress had been camped at Mindelan for several days now, and, quite frankly, Lachran, the eldest son of Anders of Mindelan, was tired of it. Since his parents had explained that the progress (which, in his opinion, was a rather ironic name for a large group of people that never seemed to move) stopping at Mindelan for so long was a sign of royal favor for the noble family that had arranged the recent alliance with the Yamani Islands, he understood that this was supposed to be an honor. However, it was one that he would prefer to do without.

For the first day, it had been fairly exciting to have knights, ladies, soldiers, and servants everywhere he looked, but the novelty of that was rapidly wearing off. Frankly, Mindelan castle was crowded enough with all the beings who were intended to live there; it didn't need to be jammed past the exploding point with hundreds of more (in his view) unwelcome visitors. After days of bumping into strange nobles whenever he rounded a corner, he was starting to entertain wistful daydreams of running away for a few days just to escape the madness. Given how packed the castle was, his parents probably wouldn't even notice his absence, so he most likely wouldn't even be punished for worrying them.

At the present, as he stood with his mother, father, and siblings in his parents' bedchamber, Lachran discovered yet another reason to detest the progress.

"Darling, you can put these on for dinner tonight," his mother, Vorinna, told him, handing him silk shirt and breeches in the Mindelan colors.

"Do I have to, Mama?" he asked , utterly unenthused by the prospect of having to dress up for supper in his own home, especially when donning the Mindelan colors, which he believed clashed with his red hair and green eyes, was involved.

"Tonight everyone in our family will be wearing the Mindelan colors," replied Vorinna briskly, distributing gowns in blue-and-cream to his sisters, Kyra, Liliana, and Daniah, and a smaller, but otherwise identical to Lachran's, silk shirt and breeches to his brother, Tivon. "I ordered the fabric for your outfit and sewed it especially for tonight. You are dressing in it for supper if I have to put the clothes on you myself. Gold does not drop from the sky like rain, dear. Your father and I can't afford to buy you clothing only to not have you use it."

"Well, Mama, you'd save more money if you asked whether I needed more clothes before you went ahead and purchased them for me," grumbled Lachran. "Anyway, why did you need to get new clothes for me to put on tonight?"

"I don't wish for any of the nobles attending the progress to think that we're poor," his mother hissed, glancing around the room, as though anxious that the walls would overhear. From listening at keyholes throughout his childhood, Lachran had learned that his mother, as the fifth daughter in a family in the _Book of Silver_ that ran high to daughters rather than to sons, had been accustomed to a lifestyle of far more luxury and ease than existed in the Mindelan castle.

As a fifth daughter, her dowry had consisted more of her noble pedigree than of gold. For that reason, he supposed, she had been willing to settle for the first son of a newly ennobled family, just as Lachran's father had been willing to settle for a woman who could basically only bring a solid lineage but not much gold. Marriages and families in general, as far as Lachran understood them, were mainly about settling for things, instead of about getting what you wanted.

Of course, that didn't stop his mother from occasionally hinting that they were practically living in a poorhouse. Whenever she did, Lachran knew that when she had married Anders of Mindelan, then a knight who was frequently receiving gold pouches from the Crown for his valor, she had assumed that his martial feats would guarantee them a comfortable existence.

Like everyone else, she could not possibly have foreseen that Anders would be maimed during the Immortals War. Lachran's mother, he thought, had been forced to settle for less than she had planned, much as his father had been compelled to give up fighting as a knight far earlier than he had wished.

One would have to be blind as a mole and deaf as a post not to notice the strain these unexpected sacrifices and compromises placed on his parents' relationship. They loved each other in the way that two beings who had stood by each other through many storms and frosts did, but they also hated one another for being responsible for some of those storms and frosts. In that regard, they were like any other married couple, as far as Lachran was concerned.

"We are poor," he snapped, thinking it was about time his mother accepted her reduced status in life. "What's wrong with people knowing the truth about us, Mama?"

"We aren't poor," his father put in testily. "Unlike plenty of individuals in the realm, Lachran, you come from a family wealthy enough to provide you with so much clothing that, instead of worrying about whether you'll have any fabric to cover your body, you're fretting about how those garments will suit your personal style. Maybe you'd appreciate what you have more if you lived like a peasant for a few weeks."

"Maybe I would." Mulishly, Lachran stuck out his chin. "Perhaps my problem is that my family surrounds itself with nobles who are all richer than us, so it's hard not to feel poor in comparison, Papa."

"Just wear the breeches and shirt, son," Anders commanded, eyes narrowing.

"I don't want to." Lachran folded his arms across his chest mutinously.

"I didn't ask what you wanted," observed his father in a tart tone. "I issued an order."

"Nobody ever asks what I want," Lachran snarled, releasing a dam of pent-up fury. Searing white ire coursed through his veins, collecting in his eyes, where it clouded his vision. Unable to see what he was doing, he struck out blindly, knocking a porcelain vase off his parents' bedside table. The sound of the porcelain smashing against the floor and of the shards skidding across the stone only increased the destructive impulse now roaring through him. "Well, unlike everybody else in this family, I'm not going to settle."

"That was a wedding present from my aunt!" his horrified mother gasped, bending over to pick up the pieces of shattered porcelain.

"Careful, Vorinna," cautioned Anders, laying a stilling hand on her wrist. "Don't cut yourself."

When his wife ceased gathering the shards, Anders glared at his oldest child, saying in a quiet voice that contained all the menace of a wrathful dragon, "Go to your room, Lachran. I'll be in to talk with you shortly."

Already regretting his decision to destroy the vase, since shattering it seemed to equate in his mind to breaking up his parents' marriage, and wondering dismally how much of the promised talk with his father would actually consist of speaking, Lachran shuffled out of the bedchamber and down a corridor teeming with what, in his shame, felt like a hundred relatives. After dodging all the speculative glances of his cousins, aunts, and uncles, it was a relief to reach his room, where he could close the door behind him, and block out the judgments of his family members, at least temporarily.

The good thing about being in disgrace, he noted inwardly as he collapsed upon his bed, was that it allowed him to have privacy for what seemed like the first time in ages. The bad thing about being in disgrace was that he was sure to be punished, and it was no fun being alone if all he could do was focus on the looming prospect of consequences for his outburst. It wasn't fair that he should be punished when he was already beating himself up for his behavior, he concluded, even though he knew that such unassailable logic would not be very convincing to his father.

A knock sounded at his door, and Lachran could tell it wasn't his father, since he could recognize the man's distinctive gait from about a league away. "Come in," he called, somewhat heartened by the notion of having company that wasn't from a disciplinarian.

An instant later, the door swung open, revealing the strong frame of his aunt Kel, whom he had hazy recollections of once beseeching to offer him piggy-back rides around the nursery which he had outgrown years ago.

"Hello, Lachran," she greeted him, crossing over to sit beside him on his bed. "I've been meaning to talk with you for several days now, but I've—"

"Been too busy swapping saliva with Cleon?" suggested Lachran, who had noticed all the signs of infatuation between Aunt Kel and Cleon, the infinitely entertaining former squire of Uncle Inness. To be honest, he couldn't claim that he found this romance anything less than disgusting. As far as he was concerned, Cleon was family, because the great thing about large families like the Mindelan clan was that they were quick to adopt people as limbs on their massive family tree, so that made it all the more revolting that Cleon and Aunt Kel were kissing.

"You know about that?" Aunt Kel arched an eyebrow at him.

"Of course I do. I'm not blinder than a bat, and I'm not nearly as much of a baby as you think I am." He rolled his eyes. "I know exactly what the wet kind of kissing entails, so I realize just how gross it is."

"Well, one day, when you are even older than you are now, you will understand still more about kissing, and you won't find it so disgusting." Humor glinted in his aunt's eyes for a moment before she stated, "Anyway, the reason I wanted to talk with you is because you are growing up."

"Oh?" Baffled, Lachran cocked his head sideways at her.

"Soon you'll be a page," explained Aunt Kel. "It's understandable if you are nervous about that. Leaving home for the first time can be terrifying, and it's hard to get to sleep every night when you are asking yourself anxiously whether you'll be able to make any friends at all when you start training. The truth is that everyone else who is new will be haunted by the same uncertainties, and you will find friends. Cherish those friends. They'll be the ones who will help you with classwork and yard skills. They'll be the ones who will step in to defend you in a fight. They'll be the ones who will get you to smile when you think that your head might explode from pressure. As for the pressure, that is created by all the work that you are expected to complete as a page. The training is tough, and there is never any free time—often there isn't even enough time to finish all the work assigned to you—but you learn many important things, and that, ultimately, is the point of page training. Some of the older pages might bully you when you first arrive, but just remember that you are far braver and stronger than them. After all, if they were so great, they wouldn't feel that they had to tear you down in order to lift themselves up." 

"I don't want to be a page," Lachran announced abruptly. The words had been roiling around in his brain for months, but, finally, he allowed himself to release them. Somehow, it was easier to confess that he didn't wish to be a page to the aunt that he hadn't seen in years than it was to admit this to his father, siblings, or mother. All of them expected him to be nothing less than eager to begin page training, and he had wanted to disappoint them even less than he wished to be a knight.

Now that he had been recently reminded of how his parents had been forced to settle for far less than they had ever intended to, he was determined that he wouldn't compromise his dreams like they had. Unlike them, he wouldn't trade a puddle of cheap memories for the murkiness of what might have been. He, unlike them, would make his fantasies a reality, and if it hurt them to see him achieve his goals, he would re-evaluate how much they really loved him. In the end, he couldn't permit the dreams of others destroy his own.

"Don't let hazing keep you from becoming a page," his aunt told him, apparently assuming that he wanted to be a page and was just scared of the bullies. "If you allow the bullies to intimidate you, you let them win, and they don't deserve victory when they are the true cowards."

"I don't want to be a knight," repeated Lachran, his jaw clenching. "I want to attend the royal university and become a scholar. From Mama, I inherited the Gift, and I plan on being trained properly in it. Ever since I was little, my magic has always intrigued me, and, when I'm older, I want to use it not only to heal people of diseases we already know how to cure and to mend injuries that we already know how to fix, but also to discover cures to diseases that we can't fight now and to fix injuries that we don't understand how to mend yet. Aunt Kel, I grew up watching Papa limp. I heard people tell him how lucky he was that his leg would still move at all, and I could see in his eyes that he was grieving for all the things his leg couldn't do any more, rather than appreciating all that it could still do. After witnessing the sort of heartbreak that has created in our family for years, I can't go out and inflict that sort of pain on others. I was meant to heal, not to maim and kill. The gods gave me a Gift for a reason, and I have to use it."

"That's a good dream, and, from what my friend Neal has told me about the university, much of the advice I gave you about page training will still be applicable." Aunt Kel cast him a sidelong glance. "Your father didn't mention that you were planning on going to the university rather than to the palace."

"I haven't told him yet," muttered Lachran, tugging on a loose thread in his quilt. "In fact, I don't have a clue how to tell him."

"Just tell him what you told me," Aunt Kel answered with a pat on his knee.

Before he could reply or she could elaborate, his father's uneven stride could be heard coming down the hallway. His aunt had barely left the room when a firm knock sounded on the door.

"Come in, Papa," he shouted through a dry mouth that felt like it would never be moist again.

Lachran's heart pounded in his eardrums as Anders twisted open the door, closed it, and, like Aunt Kel had previously, joined Lachran on the bed.

"Please explain to me why you broke the vase belonging to me and your mother." His father's tone rendered this far more of a command than a request.

"It doesn't matter why I broke the vase, Papa." Lachran snorted, thinking that it was impossible to explain why humans lost control and blindly struck out against anything in reach. Beings had been engaging in this inexplicable pattern of abuse for centuries, and so, while unexplainable, it could no longer be classified as a mystery. Lachran was a human, and so he ruined valuable things and relationships without pausing long enough to even realize what he was doing. There was no other explanation required or even possible for his actions. "All that matters is that I broke it. The vase is broken, and how it came to be broken doesn't make a difference."

"It makes a difference to those who owned the vase," his father pointed out dryly. "I want to understand why you, in a fit of temper, destroyed something precious that your mother and I had."

"I'm sorry I did it." Lachran ground his teeth together. "Isn't that enough for you, Papa?"

"No, it's not." More than a trace of impatience shaded his father's voice now. "I would like to discuss what happened."

"Well, I wouldn't." Lachran folded his arms over his chest. "I already told you I'm sorry, Papa. What more do you want?"

"I want to treat the cause, rather than merely the symptoms, of whatever ails you," his father educated him sternly. "However, if you refuse to cooperate with me, son, I can just address the symptoms, which would involve me taking you over my knee and smacking your backside a couple of times. Of course, since we would have failed to fix the real problem, I suppose you might find yourself in that uncomfortable position again in the near future, so maybe you want to spare your bottom some pain by talking to me like the big boy you insist you are."

"Don't spank me, Papa." Wildly, Lachran launched himself into his father's arms, burying his head in the man's broad shoulder. He hated being spanked not just because it made his backside sting, but because he knew that it hurt his father's leg to spank a child. Lachran suspected that with Anders of Mindelan the adage about a spanking hurting the parent more than the child might actually be true. Today he had already broken a porcelain vase that had been a wedding present to his parents; he didn't want to inflict any more damage upon his father. "I _am_ really sorry about ruining the vase. I was just so angry that I lost control. Truly, I wasn't thinking about anything. I just had the overwhelming urge to lash out and destroy something—anything—without any regard for what it was."

"I know that," his father remarked, gently pushing him away and tilting up his chin, so that their eyes met. "The moment I became a father I didn't transform into a fool. I would like you to explain to me what drove you over the edge."

"I didn't want to wear the clothes Mama made for me," muttered Lachran, his fingers fiddling with the loose strand of quilt once again.

"And?" Anders pressed. "Just because I'm your father, Lach, that doesn't mean that you can lie to me with impunity and expect me not to detect it."

"And I don't want to be a page," burst out Lachran, throwing any tact to the wind. "After growing up watching you struggle to deal with your injury, why would I wish to devote my life to killing and maiming people? Why wouldn't I yearn to use my Gift to heal the sick and wounded instead? Papa, I want to study at the university. I wish to learn about healing with magic. One day, I even hope to discover new ways to cure injuries and diseases that we can't heal now. I was furious, because everyone wanted me to be a page. Nobody really seemed to care about what I wished to do, but I felt like I had to still pretend to want what everybody wished for me, even though I didn't want that."

"Son, I don't ever want you to feel that way." His father squeezed his shoulders. "You've always been good at riding, archery, and other yard skills. Nothing ever suggested that you didn't enjoy those activities—"

"I did enjoy them." Lachran bit his lip. "I liked them too much. Papa, I took pleasure from learning skills that could help me kill and maim men in the future. That alone should tell you that I shouldn't be a knight. Besides, I've seen what knighthood training does to people. You're not happy because you can't fight and serve the realm like you used to—like you were taught to. Uncle Inness is so silent and serious that you can tell that he has seen unspeakable horrors. In his light gray eyes, you can even see how his experiences have seeped the color from them. As for Uncle Conal, he never stops joking and laughing, but you can tell that all the merriment is nothing more than a mask for his inner turmoil. He smiles because he can't admit to anyone how much agony he is in. Cleon is similar to Uncle Conal. He is always teasing everyone, but, sometimes, if you stare at him long enough, you'll see the exuberance dancing in his eyes shifting to a shadowy sadness. Aunt Kel is even less talkative than I remember her, and her edge is sharper. I don't want knighthood training to mess me up like that."

"Listen to me, Lach." Anders sighed. "Everybody starts out as a page believing that they will lead a life of service and adventure. Everyone pictures their future successes, not their failures. Successes can be daydreamed about, but failures are fussier. They can't be envisioned. Over the years of being a squire and eventually a knight, everybody accumulates not only satisfactions but also disappointments and heartbreaking losses. Imprinted in everyone's memory are things that they wished they had never laid eyes upon. Put simply, the life of a knight much more complicated than any page could ever imagine as he polishes his sword hilt and yearns to be selected as a squire. That being said, nobody can escape suffering. While you're with your family, we can keep much of the world's pain at bay for you, but, eventually, you will enter into the wider realm. If you become a healer, you will see beings in unimaginable anguish. You'll hear cries that will give you nightmares. You'll fail to heal people you think you should be able to cure. You'll watch individuals that you believe should be allowed to go on living die and those you feel the world would be better off without survive. If you go into researching magic, you might find yourself under political pressure to delve into the darker aspects of magic or forced to use your research in ways you never intended against the country's enemies. Remember that many of the monstrous Immortals were invented by human mages during the Thanic Empire when the Old Ones wanted to hurl ever more terrible beasts at their foes."

As he shuddered, Lachran felt the blood drain from his face. After a moment, he choked out, "You don't want me to go to the university, then, Papa?"

"No." Anders shook his head. "I just want to make sure that you understand that everybody, at some point in their life, encounters unspeakable suffering, son, so I wish to be certain that you would like to go to the university because you want to go there, not because you desire to flee from something else."

"I wish to go the university to learn how to be a healer, Papa, because I feel like that's what I was meant to do," responded Lachran, his expression fervid. "I just was afraid that you and Mama would want me to become a knight since that is what firstborn sons are supposed to do."

"Tivon will probably want to be a knight, and it's not like Mindelan is running low on knights, anyway," his father commented, smiling slightly. "If I supported my youngest sister choosing to become a knight rather than a court lady or a priestess or even a mage, then I shouldn't have a problem with my oldest son deciding to go to the university to study to be a healer instead of to the palace to train as a knight. Why should youngest daughters have more rights than eldest sons?"

"Thank you for being so understanding of my choice, Papa," whispered Lachran. In his gratitude, he found that he couldn't even meet his father's eyes. Somehow, it seemed too challenging or disrespectful when he was feeling so humbled. It was rather like the ground had slipped out from beneath his feet when he had believed it to be as firm as rock. He had assumed that his father would be cross at him for not fulfilling his duty as the eldest son, and that his father would be disappointed about him not wanting to be a knight. Now that he realized he was mistaken, he was left feeling boundlessly stupid but almost unbearably delighted. Perhaps ecstasy always resulted when reality exceeded all expectations like this.

"Your family is far more understanding than you seem to believe, Lach. We're a close knit bunch, which means that, while we'll argue heatedly over idiotic things like clothes, we'll support each other through the major issues like marriage, birth, death, injuries, and career choices. That is what distinguishes us from less tight families, where members agree on shallow things like clothes, but can't stand by each other through the real trials of life." Mussing up Lachran's hair playfully, Anders concluded, "Anyway, son, I think that we'd even support you if you declared that your life's ambition was to teach the minuet to giants. Of course, I hope that your dream for the future doesn't involve teaching ballroom dancing techniques to giants."

"Don't worry, Papa." Lachran snickered. "The realm's future scholars are a little more sensible than that."

"I'll sleep more easily at night, secure in that knowledge." His father chuckled. Sobering, he added, "You'd better change into your new clothes now, Lach. The banquet is less than an hour away now."

"Of course you had to mess up my hair so I have to do it again." Lachran groaned. Then, remembering the vase he had broken, he repeated, "I _am_ really sorry about ruining the vase."

"While you should try to control the destructive compulsions that rage through you when you are angered, you shouldn't feel too awful about breaking that vase." Smirking, Anders tapped Lachran on the nose. "Neither your mama nor I ever really cared for that vase. In fact, both of us found it rather ugly. We placed it on our nightstand hoping that one day a child of ours might accidentally or intentionally break it."

"Well, since I helped you and Mama fulfill your diabolical plan, Papa, I suppose that it is only fair that you let me study at the university." Lachran laughed, as his father messed up his hair one more time before leaving him to prepare for the evening's feast.

As Lachran donned the garments his mother had provided him with, he reflected that when he had been shattered like the vase he had broken, his father had been the one to take the time to pick up the pieces and stick them back in place. In the future, he would heal patients in much the same way, and every person he cured would be a tribute to his father. After all, as both Anders and Lachlan of Mindelan understood, the world was full of maimed men waiting to be made whole again because they wouldn't settle for being half of what they should be.


End file.
